Couple of Qs

[Doc]

Hi
I tried to stuff in a formatting string aka (!!<....>!!) in the name box of Section Details. Unfortunately it displays in the Table Header as !!<....>!!.
Is there any way of avoding that..
Also I see that my index.html page is outside the /actalog/ directory.
My directory structure is:
/index.html/
/actalog/
Is that because I ticked off the "Use as Website Home Page" in the Home Page section?
cheers

[wjcampbe]

The answer to the first part will have you kicking yourself - just put the html code in without the !!< >!! bits - you are working with one of the areas where html code is allowed.

The second question - no it is because you have brochure pages. The standard layout is to have the index at the root and a second index as the catalog entry page in the acatalog folder - without this setup, any visitor entering your address without a filename would get a directory listing of your site content.

(same thing applies to anyone who calls their catalog page shop.html - if they don't also upload an empty file called index.html to acatalog, then anybody can get a directory listing of their site).

[Doc]

Hi Bill
I have tried that..while normal html would work in the Name Box...unfortunately it shows up in the section header as <h3>....<h3>..so that is a problem...so I have decided to leave html out of the Name filed..
With regards to the /actalog/ folder, at the moment someone can go to my domain name and into the /actalog/ folder and get a listing of all the files in the folder..I think I may have to change the access privalges, as it should say access denied...

[Duncan Rounding]

Just put a blank index.html file in the acatalog folder.

[Doc]

Hi Duncan
How would that help, putting a blank inxed.html in the acatalog folder?
thanks

[Duncan Rounding]

A visitor wouldn't be able to view the directory contents.

[whirlex]

when you access a URL (either www.url.co.um or www.url.co.uk/folder) the web browser looks for certain names (index.html and home.htm for example) and automatically routes to that page, if one of these files does not exist then it will just give a directory listing of the site or folder. This is a mild security rist, people can not delete your files, but can certainly see files that you do not wish to be seen.

I would recommend knocking up either a plain html page with a link to your homepage or maybe even making a 404 page (the page you get when a page cannot be found) and the change your .htaccess file to point all error 404's to that page that occour throughout your site. Pop in a list of links to all your main section pages and to the site map etc.

This is useful if you change page names or remove pages, as they will stay in google for a bit longer and you will still get hits from from old pages. Technically this is sorta cheating, but what is better for you and your punters...? A generic windows 404 page or a branded page that will point the customer to one of your pages with the option to find the missing product or an alternative...?

A very good tutorial is here!

hth

Ben

[wjcampbe]

To explain this a bit further for newbies.

All browsers automatically ask for four pages when they go to a site using just the base address. (www.anydomain.com) these are

index.html
index.htm
default.html
default.htm

When the browser finds one of these pages, it delivers the content, so people with brochure pages where the main page is named as index.html, and people who have index.html as the name of their main catalogue page have no problem.

If there is no file with one of those four names, AND (on a *NIX server) no .htaccess file redirecting requests for index.html to another page, the browser will return an index of all the files at that level of the site (folder).

The web host can make some settings that affect this behaviour, but since we are all dealing with commercial information, it is much better that we manage the process ourselves.

Duncan's suggestion of a blank file named index.html saved to the folder solves the problem, because it gives the browser something to return (actually nothing) and the browser shows all the nothing that is in the file.